Kent Wheeler, who was named the new Marblehead High School athletic director succeeding Greg Ceglarski on July 1, has been a familiar face throughout the Marblehead sports community for two decades. He has been a resident of the town since 1989, when he married his wife, Kim. Together, they raised four sons – Graham, Hayden, Kyle and Clark – and he got involved in coaching when they came of age to start participating in baseball and football. He remains involved to this day.
Wheeler has been sitting on the Marblehead Youth Baseball Board of Directors since 2005. He later founded the Post 57 American Legion Mariners baseball program. He even helped out with the Boys Scouts.
But his life started far from Marblehead. Wheeler lived his formative years in Northbrook, Illinois, and played football and baseball at Glenbrook North High School. He went on to attend Ohio State, where he graduated in 1986 with a degree in marketing. But the high-tech boom of the 1980s brought him to Massachusetts, where he was a salesman in the electronics industry.
Wheeler eventually got into the sporting goods and sportswear industry.
“I always wanted to get back into athletics,” said Wheeler as to the reason he switched careers, something he did again in 2015, when he got into the educational field.
The new Magicians athletic director returned to school to pursue that career change. He ended up receiving a Masters from Endicott College in athletic administration. He started out as a special education teacher at the high school in 2015 after receiving his teaching credentials. He soon became an assistant coach in the football and baseball programs, and a social studies teacher.
But now he’s the high school’s athletic director. What can MHS sports fans expect from the new regime?
Right now, for the most part, he will keep the status quo.
“(Marblehead High) already has a strong sports program,” said Wheeler. “I have been meeting with the coaches already to discuss the program’s strengths.”
But Wheeler knows he has considerable help in his new office. Mark Tarmey remains the school’s assistant athletic director after serving as a coach in its hockey program for several years starting in 2007.
“I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Mark (Tarmey),” said Wheeler. “He’s an incredible resource for me. He does so much for the athletic department. He basically schedules everything from the buses to the games, and also the rescheduled postponed games. The department has been running like clockwork, because of him.”
With Tarmey alongside him, it gives Wheeler an opportunity to build the sports community within the high school, not to mention in the town itself.
“I want to enhance our sports culture to get more involved in our teams now and in the future,” he said.
